Reverse Linear Full-Body Micros

With this 5-day routine, you'll start off with heavy weights and low reps and progressively lighten the loads and increase rep counts to maximize muscle-building.

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated May 2, 2022

With a week of linear periodization under your belt, it's time to flip the reps upside down with reverse linear periodization to put an even greater emphasis on building muscle.

While linear periodization is best known for increasing strength and power, the reverse linear model has been shown to maximize muscle hypertrophy or endurance strength – depending on the rep range the program finishes off with. In this case, there will be more of a hypertrophy bias, as the highest rep counts you'll see will be 16-20 per set.

These reps should sound familiar, as they're the exact same ones I used in the linear full-body micros 5-day program – just in the opposite order this time around. Here's how the week of reverse linear microcycles will look:

Workout 1: 3-5 reps**

Workout 2: 6-8 reps**

Workout 3: 9-11 reps*

Workout 4: 12-15

... Subscribe to read more!

Get the Jim Stoppani Workout App

Related Articles